The Commandos weren't the sort of team to carry out interrogations often, no they went in, got what they needed, and killed what they didn't. But they weren't above it. They were at war, there was nothing they would refuse if it meant moving even a step closer to winning. And afterwards they might not sleep so good, they might search for absolution at the bottom of a bottle, but they always took comfort in the fact they didn't enjoy the act, not in the way they'd seen some on the other side do. That hesitation and disgust was affirmation to them, of their continuing humanity.
But Kuznetsov was different.
They'd lost one of their own bringing him in. Harry wasn't even supposed to be there, he wasn't a fighter, he was a kid. But he'd been torn to bloody bits then dragged terrified and unwilling back from wherever he'd come and far from their reach while helping to retrieve the HYDRA engineer. It was only fair Steve and his team receive their pound of flesh through him.
But Phillips held them back, and Peggy, reluctant as she seemed, stepped in to help him because Kuznetsov needed no persuasion, the wizards had done the tough work for them already and he was willing to speak, to tell them anything they wanted if only to avoid that awful pain.
So they were sent away, still full of rage and nowhere to direct it.
"I need a drink."
They all did, but then they passed mess and Steve caught sight of pale blonde and bright smiles the same moment he did them. Ives approached without hesitation, that smile ever present but something like concern crinkling the corner of each eye. Steve was quick to step away from the others, moving in to meet him halfway.
"Start the first round without me," he told the guys. "I'll be over once I'm done here."
"Steve." Bucky looked entirely unimpressed but there was a weariness to him that let Steve know this was a fight he could win.
There was no question what (or rather who) Ives was approaching them in search of, but his men had been through enough that day and he was their C.O. He'd let them rest, drink their guilt away and he would handle the unpleasant work.
"It's fine, Buck. I can go a little longer, these guys can't and I need you making sure they don't get into anything they don't need to be."
He didn't look convinced, it was a weak excuse, but Bucky was just exhausted enough to go along with it and not make much of a fuss when he did. He led the Commandos away and Steve turned back to Ives, standing just a few feet away and patiently waiting.
"You look tired Captain," the smile was gone and the crinkles were deeper.
Steve tried for a smile of his own, but it pulled painfully at his cheeks so he stopped that. "I'll sleep when I'm dead."
"Hold off on that for a while, we've still got need for you. But I came by to see if you knew where Flash was? I haven't seen nothing of him since yesterday."
Steve faltered, he'd never written a condolence letter, hadn't even seen what one looked like before Bucky and Azzano, how was he supposed to tell this man his friend was gone when not even he was sure where he was gone to?
But he hesitated too long and then he didn't have to.
"Did something happen?" Pale blue eyes were locked on his face, unwaveringly intense as Ives searched for every nuance in Steve's expression even if there was no need, Steve had no intention of lying.
"Yes."
"He dead?"
Steve exhaled shakily. "No."
"Then what?"
"He was taken. Somewhere we can't send men to get him back from."
Ives looked stunned. He shook his head, slow and unsure. "He didn't do that. He wasn't soldier, he didn't fight."
"He didn't. But he could. He was special, could do things most couldn't and when we got caught in a tight spot, we called for help. And they sent him."
"And then he got taken."
He wasn't looking for a response and so Steve didn't offer one. His expression remained smooth, he was better at keeping hold of his emotions than Steve could ever be, but Steve still saw the furrow of anger between his brow, the tick of grief at the corner of his lips.
"Thank you, for telling me." His arms crossed his chest in a way that looked as if he were trying to hold himself up. "Probably wouldn't have ever know otherwise."
He turned then and left Steve to himself.
They didn't know what to do with him. Strucker and his people had been so certain their collar would work, that Harry could do them no harm as long as it remained fast around his throat. But they were muggle and mortal and they knew nothing about the Hallows.
So they went back to their original way of handling him; in his cell he couldn't harm any of them, couldn't tear their souls from their body, and so until they could find some way to truly handle him, it was there he would remain.
Harry, of course, had different ideas. Here was probably the best chance he'd ever be given to find some way free of these mad scientists and even madder wizards. Their collar didn't work, and while they all frantically worked to fix their awful mistake and find some way to keep him in their control he was left with same predictable rota of guards. If there was any a time to attempt a breakout it was then.
There were two cameras in his cell, set in opposing corners too high in the ceiling for him to reach. Their strategic placement meant there wasn't anywhere in his cell he wasn't seen, and the overhead lights remained at the same bright, unflattering intensity constantly so there was no hiding in the dark. He couldn't try searching for weaknesses in the admittedly impenetrable looking door, or attempt digging his way out like they did in the old prison movies, he would be seen in an instant not to mention the floor was concrete. Which meant the only way he was getting out was if the door was opened from the outside.
He knew he could draw them into his cell; any display of defiance, kicking at the door, clawing at the wall, chucking his few belongings at the cameras would bring a team to him in minutes. But they'd be on guard, guns drawn and ready to subdue, he wouldn't make it a single step from his cell. So he'd have to put aside his Gryffindor tendencies for the time being, he was just as well suited for the house of the cunning, or so the Hat claimed, if he wanted out of this cell and out of this facility he'd have to prove it.
His evening meal clattered though the slot right on time. Harry was seated on the floor when it did, back propped against the wall and directly across from the door so that when that little panel in the door opened he made the briefest eye contact with the administering guard. He had pale eyes, a liquid brown near clear as amber, Harry recognized him as the most tolerable of all the guards he'd dealt with. He'd handled him gentle enough and he often offered a word or two of greeting when dropping off his meals.
The man wasn't kind or friendly or to be considered any sort of ally, he was still HYDRA, still holding Harry captive knowing full well he was to be experimented on against his will, but he was softer than the others, just enough that Harry knew he could take advantage.
He counted six hundred seconds after the tray hit the ground, silently, eyes closed and purposely relaxed. Then he pushed off of the floor, rolled into bed, and threw the covers over himself. No one watching him through the two cameras would think anything of it, he didn't always eat the meals provided and he slept often, it would be a few hours before they got suspicious. But he didn't need anywhere near that long.
It had to have been weeks by now since he'd been dragged to the facility, and most of those days were spent here, in the windowless room under its harsh fluorescent lights. He resembled a ghost because of it, any bit of color he might have received from the sun was gone now, the skin of his arms especially was near translucent. He could trace the deep blue of his veins up and down his forearms, track where they branched and merged and thickened. There was one spot just at the crook of his elbow where the vein was near as thick as his finger, he pressed his pointer down into it, focusing on the rush of blood under his touch. The he replaced the finger with the top row of his teeth and bit down into the soft skin of his arm.
He struck true, blood sprayed across the roof of his mouth immediately and began a sluggish trickle along the length of his arm. But it wasn't enough, the crescent shaped wound hadn't dug deep enough, so he fastened his jaw and bit down again, then again, then one more time until the gush of blood was enough to stain the blanket thrown over his head and pool onto the floor at the head of his cot.
Work done Harry fell completely still, barely even allowing his chest to rise and fall as he waited. It didn't take long. He lay in the semi-dark cast by the thin cotton sheet for not even two hundred whole breaths before there was rattling from outside his cell, beeping along the door, then it swung open. One set of feet entered, approaching where he lay with frantic urgency. Then a hand gripped his shoulder, pulled the blanket from over him at the same time as it rolled him onto his back.
Harry looked up, locked eyes with alarmed amber, then he struck. His uninjured arm swung up and the flat of his palm met the center of his guard's nose with unerring force, he felt the crunch of bone beneath his hand and the grind of it being forced back into the man's skull and he watched as he fell back. Dead or unconscious but leaking blood everywhere.
There was another just outside the cell, one Harry had been too hasty to see with his own eyes but known to expect anyway. He was up on his knees before the first guard was fully on the ground, hand groping at the man's belt until it found the handgun he knew they all carried along with a whole other armada of weapons. He'd never held a gun like this before, let alone fired one, but he knew the mechanics and when he squeezed the trigger, aiming wildly in the direction of the exit, he caught the second guard, once in the knee and once more in the throat. The way his body fell, halfway in the cell, acted as a perfect stopper for the door that had begun swinging shut. Harry stepped over him carelessly, stopping only long enough to retrieve a second gun and a heavy bit of rectangular plastic programmed with his key out.
The cell he was kept in was one of a dozen, six spanned one length of the short corridor and another six sat opposite, and at their end was a door twice as heavy as the one to his cell. But there was a little glass faced box where the handle should be, and when Harry lifted his stolen bit of plastic up to it the red light it emitted shone green and the locks disengaged.
Harry took his first step out from the cell block and the ugly white lights overhead turned horror film red. He faltered, caught off guard by the sudden decline of visibility and half expecting an alarm just as awful as the Caterwauling Charm to go off. But instead there was silence.
At least a dozen lab workers and easily double the amount of guards worked on this floor; with so many bodies each performing so many tasks, silence was never associated with this level. Which meant the silence was preparation for his arrival; the scientists and lab workers had evacuated and the grunts and gun toters were posted up, waiting for his attempt to escape the building.
There were no exits on this level, no windows or convenient hatches, only the elevator up to the ground floor, where they all would be waiting. But Harry already knew this, he'd prepared for it and when he fully stepped from the cell block, guns raised in preparation for any surprises that may be waiting for him, he moved forward with focused intent. He stalked down the corridors cautiously but with no hesitation, making sure to check each corner before rounding it. He passed the row of interrogation rooms he'd first been introduced to Strucker in, pricklingly aware of the cameras tracking his every move, and when he reached the long corridor with one enormous, glass wall looking into the lab and the double door, freight elevator at its end, three guards were waiting for him.
Harry dove back around the corner a half second before they opened fire, narrowly missing the hail of bullets that met the wall right where he'd stood. Not bullets, darts. They had no plans to kill him, which was good for him because he had no such reluctances.
He had maybe ten bullets in each gun, less considering he'd wasted a few trying to take down that guard at his cell door, but he only needed enough to keep the three busy until he got across the corridor.
It only took eight, eight shots and he was across, ducking into the deserted lab. One more destroyed the sensor that operated their automatic open and shut, and a gurney hastily shoved against the double doors bought him a few extra seconds. By the time the three men managed to pry the doors open manually and stumble over the overturned gurney, he was already on the other side of the lab and prying open his escape route.
It was a chute, meant for the proper disposal of medical waste. He'd watched an aide toss their refuse in it the one and only time he'd been in the lab. It was completely vertical, a straight drop down to an incinerator that burnt away anything to pass through. But the chute was narrow and even with his shit upper body strength and weak legs all he had to do was press into the walls with all four limbs and he was suspended a handful of meters over an incinerator prepared to melt him down to the bone.
Harry could hear muffled shouts from somewhere outside, the sound of equipment being overturned as the men on his heels rushed to the hatch. He groaned in quiet exertion as he used the unsteady grip his forearms had on the walls to lever himself higher in the chute, centimeter by painful centimeter until he was just clear of the hatch. It swung inward just as he stopped to give his aching arms some rest, the door blocked the guard who'd shoved his head into the chute from seeing his form dangling just above him, but he could still peer down into the darkness just as the furnace roared to life, sending a surge of heat spiraling upward.
Harry's grip suddenly got a lot more precarious as sweat beaded along his skin in reaction to the surge in temperature. The metal he was pressed against on all sides warmed past what could reasonably be comfortable but he ignored the tang of burning flesh, focused only on not plummeting to a certain, fiery demise.
Somewhere below him the chute door fell shut and the men inside were shouting, demanding the furnace be shut off. It would take only minutes for someone to make it to that lower level to try and recover what they assumed would be his flame grilled corpse. It would take even less than that for them to realize he'd never made it down there. He needed to be gone before they did.
Above his head there was a thin stream of light, barely anything to illuminate the chute but enough for him to recognize another hatch. It was an entire story up and his body was already beginning to tremble from overexertion, but he ignored his physical limitations and began to move. The metal dragged along the skin of his arms and the balls of his feet, but he grit his teeth and he shimmied higher and higher until his fingers met a notch in the smooth wall of the chute. The architect of the building had rudely failed to add a handle on the inside, but he dug his fingertips into that narrow break until his nails broke and bled and it finally lifted free.
He spilled out of the chute with an enormous gasp of relief, falling onto the floor of a tiny maintenance closet lined with shelves of cleaning supplies. He gave himself half a second to look around and conclude there was nothing in the little closet he could use, he'd ditched his guns before even jumping into the chute, knowing they would only weigh him down, but if he was careful, and he fully intended to be, he'd have no use for them. He was going to get out as quickly and silently as possible.
When Harry had been brought to the facility x-amount of daysweeksmonths ago they arrived in a cavernous room at the very bottom of the base. The elevator he'd been dragged into had labeled that floor Sub-2 with Sub-1 (where Harry had been residing this entire time) the floor above. There'd been a third button marked only with a star denoting the final and highest floor, this floor he'd shimmied up the incinerator shoot to get to. He'd hoped it would be the ground floor, but of course that was too easy, the air still had the same stale, recycled taste of filtered basement oxygen and there were no windows in the drab space. He had an unknown amount of floors between him and freedom and barely any time left before they realized he hadn't been caught in the incinerator and came looking, so he pressed pressed his hand into the cool cement of the wall and he ran.
There weren't any doors to break up the corridors, only cameras posted every few meters along the endless, winding maze. The little time he'd bought himself was up, they were watching him, following every step and sending men along the best route to intercept him. He had to find the way out, and find it before they did him or all of this would be for nothing, he'd never get a chance like this again.
Somewhere in the deserted labyrinth of corridors a door exploded open and footsteps, dozens on dozens of footsteps, drowned out the frantic patter of his own bare feet, and finally Harry found it, another elevator, smaller than the one in the lower levels. On the same wall there was a doorway marked with a little blue man running up crudely drawn stairs. He had no breath left in his lungs, his side was aching like he'd been shot, and the bottoms of his feet were raw and chafed from the ordeal he'd put them through, but he chose the stairs. Because he knew they were watching, new they had control over the building, and knew he couldn't afford to be trapped in the elevator like a suspended cage.
He took the stairs three at a time, stretching his tired legs as far as they would go, climbing level after level as below him a hoard of heavy boots chased after him. Each wall he passed was marked in chipping black paint with a number and a letter; 4B, 3B, 2B, until 1B and instead of another flight of stairs up there were two doors. One was solid wood, unmarked and windowless. The other metal, with a little window that looked outside. He could see trees, a stretch of undisturbed forest, and the sky. Ink blue and full of stars.
Harry threw himself at the door, it hadn't been used in a long time, it was rusted shut and fought his attempt to open it. But he threw himself at it again, putting every bit of strength he possessed and then some into the shoulder he rammed into the cool metal. They were a level behind him. Fifteen stairs below. He didn't stop to look, or even consider abandoning the stubborn door for the one to his right. No, he shoved again and it yielded.
There were more stairs, going down this time, the narrow metal staircase led to the dirt and the forest beyond. Harry ignored it, he clambered onto the railing meant to prevent the buildings occupants from a nasty tumble. He climbed onto the top railing, didn't waste a second to try and balance and he jumped.
It was better than flying.
Better than the swoop of his stomach when he kicked off from the earth, broom firmly under him.
Better than hurtling from impossible heights, one hand gripping that flimsy bit of wood while the other reached for the snitch just out of his grasp.
This fall was uncontrolled, there was nothing slowing him and the unstoppable force of gravity, but he knew when he landed, no matter how much it would hurt, he would be free. Because he could run and run and nothing would catch him. Years of Harry hunting, of being the smallest and the weakest and the loneliest had prepared him for this moment. All he had to do was land.
He propelled off the railing, spread his arms to slow the fall. And then. He. Stopped.
Two arms, impossibly strong wrapped around his waist and jerked him backwards. They hit the chilled metal of the staircase and Harry didn't hesitate before lashing out; his fingers curled into talons, his feet swung without accuracy but incredible force, his teeth latched onto anything within reach. He threw everything he had into clawing free because he was right there, he was breathing in his first breath of clean, fresh, outdoor air, he couldn't give that up. He wouldn't.
But there were too many. They grabbed his arms, pinned his legs, subdued him like a disgruntled kitten and when even then he wouldn't quit, they leveled one of their strange, metallic pistols at him and shot a dart into the meat of his shoulder.
It was over after that.
No one was amused by the near escape. Not Strucker, who had been asleep only a level above when the boy had broken free. Or any of the wizards, who had been safely ensconced in their own safe houses only a floo trip away. But of them all Britain's ICW representative was most unsettled.
"We've said from the start he's willful, he's stubborn, he doesn't know when to give up," the man with his grey streaked hair, and robes thrown haphazardly over his bed clothes paced the length of the room with a hand atop his disheveled hair. "And you swore we had no reason to worry, you would keep him contained. That," he gestured wildly of the footage of the boy's mad dash through the halls, "does not look contained."
"Mistakes were made." Strucker's tone was carefully even, but any who dared take a look past the straight face he put on would see the agitation he was barely suppressing. None of the gathered wizards bothered. "Those careless enough to make them were dealt with accordingly. This will not happen again."
"But how can we be sure? How do we know for certain you can contain the likes of him?"
"You don't. But one thing you are certain of is that you are no more capable of holding him, otherwise we would not be having this conversation. He took us by surprise in that lab, he's more powerful than anyone in this room could have predicted. We've been taking steps to fix that but it took time, he saw an opportunity in that time and he took it."
Annoyed as he was at having his credibility questioned, Strucker was still impressed. Potter was alone in that cellblock for a reason, it was reserved for those of his subjects to be handled with the highest level of caution. All the others were kept in Sub-2. And yet still he'd managed to kill two of his men, free himself from his cell, and make it all the way outside. He'd been loose for an hour before his team of impressively trained operatives had managed to apprehend him. Strucker constantly found himself amending the impression he'd formed of the boy.
But impressed or not he couldn't stand for another close call. Not only did the wizards grate on every nerve he possessed when worried, but if Potter actually managed to escape there would be the end of everything he'd worked so long for. So he strapped the young wizard to a gurney, threw him back into his cell, and kept him on a round the clock drip of sedatives, too doped up to even notice the passing of time let alone be cognizant enough to plan another escape. And he kept him there until the supposed geniuses he paid too generously for how often they fucked up finally agreed on the best way to keep Potter and his considerable power contained.
They'd been working on the collar that failed, tailoring it to fit Potter specifically and the daunting data they'd recorded that day in the lab before the boy had gotten out. A new core needed to be fit in the device; if they wanted to cut off complete access to his magic the voltage of bioelectric scrambling electricity being sent up and through his brain needed to be increased. But it was a delicate thing finding just the right amount, too little and they'd see no change, too much and he could lose primary function in his brain.
It was there they were spending majority of their time, with no subject equivalent to Potter's magical strength, finding that sweet spot was more difficult than any of them had ever thought it might be. And working out the proper voltage levels wasn't all they needed done; the innards of the device needed to be rearranged, to allow room for a vial of nerve agent. The collar was programmed with a set distance Potter was permitted to be from his cell, if he crossed it, he'd be injected immediately. On the other side was a second vial, this one filled with a potent sedative fed to him every twenty-four hours. It wouldn't knock him out entirely, but it would keep him just sluggish enough to be compliant.
Then there were the tracking devices to replace, the increased voltage corrupted any they tried to implant. And then they needed to work on the anti-tampering failsafes. And the vitals tracker. And the remote inhibitor to lower the voltage when they had need for his magic. There wasn't just one task to be done. But then Strucker made his impatience and his displeasure much more apparent, pacing through their workspace, peering over their shoulders, swiping through their formulas and ideas, and the fire beneath them really lit.
Potter was fit with the new collar three days after his near escape, they kept him on the sedative while they swapped out the devices, to save them all the stress and the fight he was sure to cause. Then they stuck him back in his cell, with an aide and two guards to keep watch over him, and let him work through the last of the drugs in his system.
Harry's mouth was full of cotton, his tongue felt swollen and parchment dry at the same time, and his stomach was cramping. Not like he'd eaten something bad but like he hadn't eaten anything at all, and the IV line that lead to a clear bag of fluids hanging on a pole backed up that assumption.
He'd felt this way a lot pre-Hogwarts, when he'd spent days at a time locked in his cupboard and had nothing else to do but sleep. When they'd sedated him at the end of his disastrous escape attempt they must have said to hell with him and all the trouble he caused and decided to just keep him out of it for the foreseeable future. The fact that he was awake now only meant they'd resolved the problem with his magic and his once chance at getting away was gone.
It was crushing, that realization, but honestly it wasn't much of a surprise. Part of him had known he wasn't getting free; Strucker wasn't some amateur who'd snatched him off the streets for the hell of it, he was HYDRA and he had a whole army of HYDRA soldiers to back him up. Even knowing that, Harry wasn't at least going to try, and he'd made it further than he'd thought he would so he shouldn't sit around feeling bad for himself.
He was on a gurney on which he might have been strapped down once, but they'd been loosened since, one jerk of his wrists undid them completely and he was pushing himself upright. He had a few seconds to look around and find himself in the familiar space of his cell.
And then he was tipping over.
There was no reason to it. He'd just swung his legs over the edge of the gurney, planted his feet on the ground and then it was like someone was ripping it from right underneath him. He fell sideways, spilling painfully onto the floor where he lay prone for a second trying to regain his bearings. But when he tried to push his hands beneath himself, to lever his body off the ground it was as if the pathway from his brains to his limbs had been cut off because all they did was scrabble uselessly at his sides.
"Fuck." He was breathing too hard, and he was starting to feel a little clammy, but the threat of an oncoming panic attack wasn't what bothered him, he'd had enough of those these past few months to be used to the discomfort. No, it was the awful feeling of rising nausea that had him concerned. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck immobile in puddle of his own sick. And after the stunt he'd just pulled he wouldn't put it past the men watching him to leave him there as some sort of punishment.
"Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Don't throw up." He managed to get his left arm planted into the ground as he whispered frantically to himself. "Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Please, don't throw up." It wobbled precariously but he managed to push the upper half of his body off the ground just as he body betrayed him. There was nothing in his stomach, he'd been on the drip the past however many days, but his stomach still made a fantastic effort at turning itself inside out. Only after it had exhausted itself did he roll over to put a good bit of distance between him and his mess.
"Fuck you, Strucker." He pawed weakly at his throat and-yup, right there was the cause for his sudden weakness. The collar felt thicker, probably not enough for most to notice, but he'd spent hours toying with the thing out of boredom. He'd gotten used to the hum of electricity at the base of his skull, he'd learned to tune out the strange sensation, but he was hyperaware of it now and the way it thrummed so much stronger.
Had they really spent all that time working out how to suppress his magic just to turn up the collar's settings? Maybe they couldn't figure it out and so resorted to the next best option? Death magic was tricky business and not even he fully understand it yet. All he needed was a sign that it was still accessible, the curl of a shadow, just a whisper from Death and all the rest could be worked out later. He just needed to concentrate his fuzzy mind.
The tendons in Harry's neck bunched up as he focused on the hint of a stain on the ground just to the right of where he lay prone, someone had tried to clean up the mess he'd made of the guard but the spots where his blood had pooled still held a shadow to it. Someone had died here. Two someones. Past experience proved that it gave him strength, made the Heart inside him sing. So he focused on how it felt to watch that little girl in the car pass on. The wondrous feeling of holding Adalgar's soul on a tether and the horrified awe of controlling it with Claude.
Harry shuddered, spread his palm out in preparation…and then he threw up.
"He's taking longer to acclimate then we thought he would, but he's more than proven that our guesses regarding him are just that. Guesses."
Strucker sniffed disdainfully. "Some men can't handle their benzodiazepines."
They were forty-eight hours past the installation of Potter's new inhibitor and the boy had shown no sign of being able to access any amount of his magic. They'd dragged him out a few times to test his stress levels, try and coax some kind of reaction from him and his magic, but there'd been nothing. Mostly because he was too busy sicking up to lash out at them.
He wasn't taking well to the new collar, whether it was the drip of sedative being fed into his bloodstream from the left vial, the increased voltage of electricity surging through his brain, or a combination of both, they weren't sure. But anything that passed through the boys lips made a reappearance within the hour, and though he'd managed to move from the heap on the ground the guards often left him in to the bare cot on the other side of his cell under his own power, it usually took well over half an hour and more effort than Strucker honestly thought necessary. He would have convinced himself Potter was merely being dramatic, but the vitals the collar tracked showed a lower than average heart rate and his body was running cooler than it should.
His medical team didn't appear concerned, they were putting his body through much, it would need time to adjust. The worst they believed they might have to fear was a bit of dehydration, but if it ever got to that point they could always hook him back up to an IV for nutrients. HYDRA had long ago perfected an intravenous solution to keep their meta-human assets functional. But the wizards were scheduled to make a visit and if anything about Potter's upkeep displeased them he was sure to hear an endless bit about it.
"Set him up with a nutrient solution." The aides all exchanged nervous glances at Stucker's order, since the incident with their colleague and the unfortunate removal of her soul none of them had been at all eager to approach Potter. Even as out of it as he was now any task requiring being within a ten foot radius of him set them all out of sorts. But he had a job to do and allies to appease and if they couldn't muster up the courage to handle their most important asset then they're usefulness to HYDRA may need to be reassessed.
"And a shot of B2 if he looks to need one. I have no energy to put up with any whining from those wizards."
None of the ICW members were much fans of making house calls to the Baron's facility. The upper levels where they hid the true nature of their business beneath the front of a steel recycling plant was unrefined, too cold and too dreary for any of their tastes. And the lower levels, where the real work was conducted, was too foreign for any of their tastes; the stark white, electric lights, the strange monitors with their incomprehensible words and numbers, the host of labs and their confusing machines. And the cell blocks with the dozens of once wizards acting as an uncomfortable reminder of their less than moral actions.
Once they may have been able to get away with paying the facility a visit once every few months, but since Potter's arrival it seemed they were there near every week. And even though they had been the ones to request this particular visit, it didn't mean they had to be happy about it. But after how poorly Strucker had done keeping Potter contained, they needed to make an inspection of their own. For peace of mind.
They'd been given a tour of the building, to see firsthand the additions to security following the escape attempt and now they were being taken to Potter himself, to see firsthand the measures Strucker's team had put in place to ensure he wasn't going anywhere again.
"We've found through personal experience he's most powerful when under stress," Strucker explained as they followed him down the stretching corridor. "So we've put him through the gauntlet to test the effectiveness of his new inhibitor and he did nothing. The same electroshock that removed my aide's soul yielded no result, as did none of our more traditional techniques. He's entirely powerless until we wish otherwise."
"He could be faking."
Strucker offered Romania's representative a shallow smile. "He could be. Which is why I was so excited when you requested to see him.
"He doesn't like us, HYDRA, he'd heard many horror story during his time with the SSR no doubt, but he doesn't know us. You on the other hand, you're his people, he risked his life for you and you betrayed him. I suspect one look at you and he'd lose any control he might be holding on to. He'll become irrational, want to attack you, hurt you just as you did him. There will be no faking then."
Unsurprisingly, none of the ICW seemed very thrilled with the revelation.
"You'd let him kill us to test your machine?" Britain, always the first to speak up, looked outraged and terrified, prepared to turn back to that fireplace and return to the debatable safety of his country.
"Of course not," Strucker scoffed. "Even if the inhibitor fails and he is able to access his magic, the drugs we've been feeding him won't allow for much control. And this," he held up a thin device, near flat as parchment but with a screen like the monitors in his lab, "allows control of the mechanisms within his collar. He makes a wrong move and I will manually release the paralytics we've stored in his collar to stop any attack. You're perfectly safe.
"Moreover, we only need just a few of you to speak to him. His cell can't fit your entire team, four at most, myself included. The rest of you can view him through the live security feed we've set up."
"Which of us will it be then?"
"That is entirely up to you. However I will say one particular presence in the room would be a great help." Strucker's monocled gaze turned to Britain's representative, who spluttered in shock then nerves.
"Me? Why mine?"
"You come from his home, you were there during his war and its aftermath. There are things only you know, things only you could say to him to coax the perfect reaction from him."
"I didn't…I didn't know him very well."
"But you knew him."
"I will be there with you," Moreau volunteered, laying a hand on the frazzled man's shoulder. "We'll make sure it all remains in control."
The man still didn't look convinced, but he gave in with a slump of his shoulders.
"We have room for one more," Strucker reminded. "If we have another who would like to join."
No one did, but he'd expected no less from their kind.
"Doctor List will see you to the security wing then, where you can observe a safe distance away." Then he turned and, flanked by the two ICW members and a member of security for each of them, headed for Potter's cell.
They'd bound him in preparation for the visit; thick shackles around the ankles and another set around the wrists that led to a chain bolted into the ground of his cell. Even without the chains he looked a sorry sight, pale as the walls with deep shadows under his unsettling eyes, slumped on his little cot he gave off an air of fragility that didn't match the destructive force that had torn a girl's soul from her body and killed two of his men in that very room.
His guards entered the room first and took up strategic positions along the walls, next came Strucker who Potter blinked up at without the burn of anger reserved just for him. The same for France. But then Britain entered.
His pale hands wrapped around the chains at his wrists, they rattled as they pulled taut at the bolt in the ground, the guards shifted uncomfortably, hands falling to their guns, but he wasn't looking to pull himself free only ground himself. Then he spoke, the first words said since he'd been woken, and it was directed at Britain.
"Mr. Diggory."
The man flinched, his hands wound in the long sleeves of his robes in a move that mirrored the boy's. "Potter."
"You're with them. You're one of them."
Britain's representative, Amos Diggory, looked away from the accusing green eyes, but only found Strucker's watching him curiously. "Not well, you said?"
"He went to school with my son."
"Until he died." Potter hadn't looked away once and Diggory was growing more nervous the longer he did. "Are you here because of him?"
"I'm here because we need change. We're dying, hundreds of us every day."
"I didn't mean for any of this…."
He looked sad, begging to be believed, Amos almost fell for it before he shook himself straight.
"Maybe you didn't. But that didn't matter, something needed to be done, and this wasn't something you could fix."
"I could." Potter was agitated now, the chain he'd wrapped around his wrist jangled tellingly. "I was. We had a solution and it was going to work."
"Not like this."
Potter fell silent, stunned, but there was anger there too, Diggory and he had a shared history, and maybe he hadn't thought the man capable of siding with HYDRA, but men did terrible things when they were desperate.
"Does your wife know what you're condoning?" he whispered. "I'm just a child, barely older than Cedric was."
The words had been spoken to cut, and it looked as if they had, Diggory was shaking but he wasn't frightened anymore.
"She's dead. Caught the plague and couldn't shake it. Same as your friends."
The little color in Potter's face drained away. "My friends?"
"The little Weasley girl was one of the first to catch it, wasn't she? One of the first to die too. Her mum wasn't long after. And the smart one…"
And now when Potter jerked against his chains it wasn't to ground himself, but to lunge forward, reach for Diggory and hurt him in whatever way he could. But as Strucker watched, there was no magic, not the smallest sight of it.
"What did you do to Hermione?"
"She needed to be contained."
"She did nothing wrong."
"We caught her performing a blood ritual to help a known criminal hide from the Ministry of Magic!"
"We were trying to save you."
"And what good were you doing? Near seventy years in the past? No, we have it well handled here. It's like you said Potter, you are a child, let us handle this mess."
"Handle it?" His voice was pitched high in disbelief. "By putting your trust in HYDRA? Do you even know what they are? What they've done? What they'll do?"
"Save us." Diggory spat. "That is what they will do."
Potter shook his head, awed incredulity widening his eyes. "You're arrogant. And you're blind. You deserve exactly what's coming."
"What?" Moreau stepped in then, cutting off whatever vitriol filled words Diggory had prepared for the boy. "What is coming? What is the purpose of all this destruction you caused our world."
He blinked over at the woman, surprised to recall she and anyone but himself and Diggory were in the room. "I didn't cause it." Was what he finally responded with. "I didn't want any of this. I fought to stop it, I sacrificed all that I had, and you proved that you deserved none of it."
"What is coming?"
"Your end. Lovegood said it already, you heard even if you didn't want to listen. It's coming and it's unstoppable, no matter how much faith you put in mad muggles, no matter the torment you put me through and the magic you steal, nothing can stop this. You'll die. And I won't."
He settled back down then, released his chains and rolled onto his cot until his back was facing the room.
"Feel free to show yourselves out."
